Re: [tied] Re: Pre-Germanic speculation

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Moretti" <marcomoretti69@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 10:44 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Pre-Germanic speculation


> It is clearly non-IE as many other toponyms for this simple reason:
> It cannot be found any matchup with an IE root that works.
> What holds true for Sams� holds equally true for any other similar
> item.

OK, so I tell you what I think about this type of placename. I may be wrong,
but my opinion is based on my familiarity with English toponyms. The type
...s-� looks very similar to English island names such as Selsey, Mersea or
Bardsea/Bardsey. They are certainly not substratal but consist of a genitive
plus OE -i:(e)g 'island' = Danish -� (very often the genitive is formed from
an owner's name, e.g. Beornre:des i:eg, telescoped into modern Bardsea).
Since OIc. S�mr, ODan. Sam is an attested personal name, we can regard the
Sams- part as a fossilised genitive -- Sam's Island. Now the common
adjective <s�mr> _is_ connected with Saami: it means 'swarthy, dark-skinned'
(the Norse stereotype of a Lapp), but of course it doesn't mean that the
name was given by Finno-Ugrians or even that any of them ever lived in that
area. It was a Norse name and was brought to Denmark by Norse-speakers.

As I have said before it's only too easy to make silly mistakes if you
attempt to investigate placenames without studying their history. It's paper
linguistics without any real value. With your methods you might be tempted
to see non-IE "substratal elements" and an "Etruscan" suffix -s- in English
Alston, Selsey, etc. Fortunately, we know their true etymology. Ironically,
they may contain _non-substratal_ non-IE elements, e.g. Selsey is 'Seal
Island' and OE seolh 'seal' is ultimately non-IE, but the placename in
Sussex was given by the Saxons who had brought the word with them to
Britain, and therefore does not come from a local substrate.

From my own backyard, I know several hydronyms of rather recent Polish or Mo
dern German origin that have been naively analysed as "Old European" or even
pre-IE (only because the etymologists did not bother to check them up in old
documents). I therefore prefer to be cautious.

Piotr